With Starlink Now Available In The Nation Of Tonga, Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is In 102 Countries. But Will You Buy His Phone?
The Oasis Reporters
August 4, 2024
The future of telecommunications may be shifting from laying underground cables, a feature that pulsated an excited Nigerian people and turned things around in the banking sector that brought so much goodwill to the presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in the period between 1999 to 2007.
He freed the nation from the vice grip of General Sani Abacha who knew what to do, but wanted telecommunications to be his personal business. He dithered on launching Nigeria into the new dawn of telecommunications.
Obasanjo came in and liberalized the sector, inviting telecommunications firms from Africa first, to bid for licenses. From South Africa and Zimbabwe, they came.
Things are changing very fast, for the sector does not rest on its oars.
Nigeria has had fiber optic cables laid underground, fast forgetting the dark days of NITEL that gave the nation 500,000 lines with less than half of it working for 50 years.
The liberalization made it possible for all the transformations in the economy to start.
There’s now a new frontier, and telecommunications may be gradually moving to the skies.
Yes.
Space is the new frontier.
Telecommunications Services providers are already cracking their heads in boardroom meetings on how to link up to space and give each and everyone one of them a level playing ground when it comes to coverage. After all, where fiber optic cables cannot get to, connections can come from the sky. Just say Space.
In Europe there is a law that actually requires providers to work in all of Europe so you could drive for 3000 km and still have the same data for the same price, according to a twitterati who is knowledgeable on telecommunications issues.
Coverage may be variable with outages in deep rural areas in Italy but Denmark has so much coverage that there’s hardly any struggle experienced.
The story in Nigeria is different. Apologies have been rendered by some networks due to service disruptions caused by damages to undersea cables, thus causing network outages. With Space Satellite Communications now in place, who would cause damages in the sky that easily?
A pioneering guru is already forging ahead with his dream telecommunications strategies. Elon Musk is building his own phones and guess how they will connect.
His big question is, would you buy his phones?
Well, if they are pocket friendly. Perhaps I will.
Greg Abolo
gregabolo@gmail.com
